do you think gabriel would work better as a villain if he had another miraculous? because his motivation is to heal emelie but his miraculous easily allows that and doesn't seem to fit his personality as he's very brash and forceful so... do you think he would work better with canon tiger or is there another miraculous you think would fit him better?
Yes and no.
At the core, the biggest struggle with Gabriel as a villain is his polarity and how it just doesn't balance out well, how it feels like he ping pongs between two extremes. They want him to be the BIG BAD that we take seriously and there's supposed to be some level of fear towards him, which is why we get see Butterfly and Peafowl be so OP and limitless in what they can do; but they also want Gabriel to be the campy Saturday morning villain, which you laugh at his idiocy and you don't take as seriously.
Gabriel is now the best example on why you don't mix these two polar types of villains. If Gabriel is meant to be a very serious and dangerous threat, you can't really do so when you know he's an idiot. Why, the start of s5, he could've won then and there cause he had the time traveling Rabbit. Success was right there at his fingertips, and he botched it.
And that there is the biggest struggle for Miraculous in general, they need to pick a lane and stay in it. Now, if they want to weave out of that lane a little, they can do so as long as it doesn't clash with the route they're taking (doing something far out of your lane will make the character OOC). So no matter what Miraculous Gabriel has, it's not going to work unless it's decided if Gabriel is meant to be the cartoony Saturday morning villain or if he is meant to be a serious and dangerous threat.
I will add, what Miraculous he uses can shape that too.
Butterfly and Peafowl, both being long range Miraculous, set their users up to be long term villains. As they can hide themselves away and have minions do the work for them, they control how long this game goes on. They end things on their terms, whenever they are ready to come out of hiding.
By set up, I'd say they'd work better for a serious threat. Butterfly works off emotional manipulation, which typically is a serious threat; and Peafowl can take whatever you imagine and bring it to life (which I'd vote that's more fitting of Creation). So these two Miraculous would best serve with someone that's a more serious threat. Butterfly is set up to force people to try and learn emotional control, to shut down what they feel, less they get taken advantage of. And Peafowl is peak unpredictability, you have no idea what this user is going to throw at you.
So these two are best set up to be used by a serious threat.
To add to it, things would need to be cut or changed with Emilie if Gabriel is meant to be a more serious threat. As what we see with these two is kinda limitless in what they can do. So they should grant healing power or make a healing entity and revive Emilie that way, and to my knowledge, we don't really have a good reason on why Gabriel hasn't tried it (aside from possibly he's an idiot who hasn't thought of it). So it may serve better to just cut reviving Emilie out entirely, go with Gabriel's apparent want for world domination.
OR you go with Emilie being deady dead dead, and she's been dead for a good long year, and the one thing these two Miraculous can't do, is revive Emilie the way Gabriel wants. Butterfly could maybe only make a champion that could either reanimate Emilie's corpse (which doesn't go great) or summon her soul back to the material plane, but she's a ghost now. Peafowl could technically create Emilie, but that wouldn't truly be Emilie, that'd be a copy, an imitation. This latter reason could back Gabriel needing that wish, for these two Miraculous, for all that they can do, can't truly bring Emilie back to him. Not in the way he wants her back.
Now, a Miraculous that will have him out in the open, like Tiger, is better set up for a Saturday morning villain. Now, not to say that Tiger wouldn't be a threat if misused, but the sheer factor of being out in the open, throwing hands with kids, and having more of a risk of having that Miraculous taken, that's a better set up for Saturday morning villain vibe, especially as he'd get to directly banter off the heroes.
Like, with the Tiger example specifically mentioned, you can even have the fun of him and Adrien getting into a "cat fight" over puns, as it is canon (s1 wise anyway) that while Adrien likes to crack puns, he doesn't like other people making puns. So there's some fun you can have right there.
Also, him being out and about, close to heroes, it puts a limit on how long he'd be a villain, as all they have to do is get that Miraculous off of him, and they'd have direct access to him vs waiting for him to come out of his lair for once. And that can set Gabriel up to be a one to two season threat, maaaaybe three if you have him work off other villains who can help him last, but depending on how it's handled, that could also push it.
As for what other Miraculous, well, to work off color coding, Dragon does stand out to me, as Gabriel does have that similar color scheme that Kagami initially had in her intro, having the red and white to contrast Longg's red and black. Dragon would also be the best choice for having an offensive power that has you out and about, but also allows him to be elusive and escape from the heroes as he can become literal elements and escape them that way, as it's impossible to grab air or water.
Also, by set up, other Miraculous can better work off him just not having the means to revive Emilie, as they just don't really have that power too; though exceptions are Rabbit (due to time travel), Rooster (it has the power to hop into other dimensions/realities, so healing should be a cinch), Ladybug (through the Cure), and possibly Cat (cats are tied to healing in various mythology, and technically destroying does play a part in some healing, so could destroy the coma state and revive her that way? maybe?).
At the core, no matter what Miraculous Gabriel has, what sort of villain he is needs to be decided on, else it still won't work. Either he's a serious threat to take seriously, or he's a campy villain to laugh at his dramatics and idiocy. He can't ping pong between both like he does in canon.
Hi. Sooooo....... You are the artist (and a great one of that☺️) so I'ma bit nervous to suggest that big of an idea.... But since you had no Gabriel designe so far.....
I had the idea, since it's always a joke how bad Gabriel's outfits are, that you maybe change it up. He is a fashion designer, so he might make stylish, but inpractical outfits.... At the end of the day, he just stands in one place and does very little....
Like, one of my example would be for the dragon:
Combining with this cloud hat with his "Malificent" outfit, keeping the horns and the robes
Fashionable, but inpractical
My additional dugestion having alternative "masks" (not the classic "around the eye and that's all") as he technicly just have a "bag" on his head, or a monocle, as peacock (in this chase, cloud-head and rain chystals covers his eyes
Dragon horns, and the black and red is already there. The baggines simbolises dragon wings (also intimidation)... Maybe the elemental markings could be on the edge of his robes' arms and at the bottom
I know it might be bit much to suggest a whole character's main ... Designe(s), and I understand it if you don't like these, or have something other in mind, that's perfecly fine.
Anyway, have a nice day!☺️
(also, I dared to make a kind of character chart, modifieing one of yours, I don't want to claim as my own, just felt it's more representative with a familiar format, and maybe easier to use it, if you like the ides)
Thank you, you're so nice!
Wow, I love the cloud idea. What episode are the pictures from? The art style is cute.
I tried to make these look nice... The wings aren't set in stone, I have also considered removing them since Gabe wouldn't know about them and Noorooo would try to take advantage of that. As for the dragon, I think he'd call himself Wyvern? I actually don't have that much of a problem with canon Hawkmoth, it is kind of bland and doesn't really show that he's a butterfly holder, but other than that it's just the mask that ruining the entire look.
All miraculous holders are taller by 5 centimeters when transformed, but Gabe still uses heels to make himself even taller. He's about 2 meters tall when transformed.
I always appreciate it when you send me ideas, they always make me think about things that I wouldn't have thought about otherwise!
aka ‘good shit’ because it was prompted by this post about how it’s good shit when the apparently selfish uncaring character proceeds to get themself wounded saving other characters and determinedly pretends they aren’t hurt because THEY DON’T CARE OKAY
3k words, casual Sabriel plus married Destiel but it’s really YOU ARE ALL MY FAMILY DAMMIT, also Gabriel and Castiel are dragons because why not.
AO3 link.
Oh come on, don’t pretend like you care.
I don’t care.
Yeah, well, how about you drop us a line when you decide to think of anyone other than yourself, chuckles. Until then, stay the hell away from Cas and my brother.
—*—
Gabriel slammed the demon against the wall. Its claws scrabbled at his wrist, and he let his own claws slide out. They dug into its throat, golden and slender and hard as steel.
“You know what I am,” he said cheerfully. “So I’m guessing a bright little minion like you can guess what I’m here for. How about you tell me where they are nice and quick and I only incinerate you a little bit, huh?”
The demon squinted and choked, squirming in his hold. “You mean the Winchessterss, and the—the—“
“And my favourite cousin, yeah.”
The fire was boiling in Gabriel’s blood, surging and rolling and hardly contained. He let it show in his eyes, flaring white-hot while he grinned like a knife; and the demon whined, and gabbled out directions, and curled into a miserable ball as Gabriel leaned in very slowly and dropped a smacking kiss in the middle of its forehead.
Then he let the fire loose, and grew to his true size, and flew.
The good thing about the Pit—and there weren’t many, so it wasn’t like it was hard to keep track—was that Gabriel didn’t have to hold himself in. He raged his way downward, smashing through the platforms and runways that criss-crossed the vast space like the cobwebs they were, wreathing himself in the sparks of burning rope and wood that caught at his legs and wings and trailed out behind his tail to vanish into smoke. His head swung back and forth, belching out great ribbons of gold-blue flame that turned demons into very brief fireballs and turned the rock to glass. His claws left gouges in the walls and his tail—
The shock hit him first, even before the pain. He heard his own screech bouncing off the walls, then his body was following it: crashing now without control into this wall or that, tumbling freely, as the great ice lance that had pierced his wing tore free, ripping through sail and bone.
Gabriel screamed. And he hit the ground.
“Well, what do you know,” drawled a familiar and hated voice. “Two dragons for the price of one.”
Gabriel opened his eyes against the pain.
“Asmodeus,” he hissed.
—*—
It was a battle he wouldn’t have won, if it hadn’t been for Crowley. You could always rely on Crowley to be unreliable, and trust him to be untrustworthy. Crowley had backup plans for his backup plans, and plots for every contingency. Today it was Asmodeus’ turn to be sneakily betrayed without realising just why his cunningly laid dragon traps had gone wrong.
By the time he’d incinerated half his enemies and thrown the rest off his trail, Gabriel felt more like a skeleton leaf than one of the four most ancient dragons in the world. So he changed back to his humanoid form. No need to let them see the damage, after all. That would just be embarrassing.
He melted the hinges to the dungeon with a touch and pulled the door out of the frame. Then Dean Winchester punched him in the stomach.
“... You’re welcome.”
Dean glowered at him, standing there belligerent and soul-bright. Behind him Sam was crouched protectively over a slumped human-shaped Castiel. “The hell? What’re you doing here?”
“Always a pleasure, peach cheeks. Sammy, darling, it’s been too long, my dick doesn’t suck itself you know. Who’ve you pissed off this time, Cassie?”
“Gabriel,” said Sam, quick and relieved. “Can you get these binding cuffs off Cas? He can’t heal himself with them on and they’re draining his strength pretty fast.”
Castiel blinked open his eyes and squinted at Gabriel. Gabriel’s vision was blurring too, and sigils on the lead cuffs were wavering in and out of focus.
“You came for us,” Castiel said, simple and deep and warm and too damned surprised for Gabriel’s comfort.
Gabriel sneered. “Please. Asmodeus stole from my hoard and I came down here to get it back. I just happened to hear you lot were down here too and thought I might as well collect you on my way by. It’s a long boring flight home without company.”
Castiel gave him a look as if he’d just confessed to kicking puppies for fun. Gabriel rolled his eyes, carefully slipped his claws out from fingertips that definitely were not shaking at all, and traced the marks of unlocking on the cuffs.
They broke open and fell from Castiel’s wrists; and as Castiel rolled his shoulders and sighed his relief the dungeon heated with the flare of power released.
“Cas, you good?” said Dean, brusque and warm.
Castiel rose to his feet, blue-white fire steady behind his eyes. “I am... good.”
Dean smirked. “Awesome. Let’s go. Gabriel, how’d you bust in?”
Sometimes Gabriel really wondered why he’d chosen these guys. Especially that one.
Gabriel caught Castiel’s wrist and used it to haul himself to his own feet, ignoring the strange look Sam gave him. “Doesn’t matter. Crowley’s sneaking us out the back way.”
Dean looked like he’d found half a worm in his apple. “Crowley?”
“What? He looks cute in a tiara. Besides, he owes me one.”
“Right. And you trust him?”
“Only on Tuesdays and Saturdays.”
“It’s Friday.”
“Then we’re living dangerously.” Gabriel patted his cheek and sashayed out into the chambers beyond. “But you know, hang around here by all means.”
Sheer stubbornness kept Gabriel on his feet all the way up and out through Crowley’s Back Passage (what, he was hilarious, and so was the face Crowley made whenever he said it). The path led out into a ravine filled with the tumbled refuse and broken orange rock from the Pit; and Crowley crossed his arms, and nodded at Gabriel.
“Fly away, pretty sparrows.”
Gabriel blew him a kiss. “Give my love to mummy dearest.”
Crowley shot him his patented everyone-is-stupider-than-me glare. Castiel strode forward a few paces, then came the whoomph of displaced air and the slender silver-grey dragon was blinking sapphire eyes back at them, ducking one shoulder in invitation.
“Ugh.” Dean wiped his palms on his jeans, but stepped up to climb onto Castiel’s back. “Flying. I hate flying.”
Castiel opened his eyes wide then slipped the lower lid up to leave only a bright blue crack at the top, because he was a sarcastic little shit who couldn’t help trying to roll his eyes even when he was in dragon form.
Sam turned questioningly to Gabriel. Gabriel waved a hand at him.
“Castiel can carry you both. I’ll hang about here a bit, make sure they keep off your tail.”
Sam peered at him. “You sure? We didn’t see anyone coming out. Gabriel, are you okay? You’re looking kind of... pale.”
Gabriel’s sickly patience died an unregretted death.
“Oh, for the love of—” he snapped, then had to grit his teeth against a wave of pain. “Would you get the hell out of here, you overgrown neurosis?”
Sam huffed, gave him the We Are All Disappointed In You look, and swung himself up behind Dean. Castiel gave Gabriel a puzzled look. Then he spread his wings and leapt into the air. In another moment he was gone, leaving only the fading sound of Dean’s “Oh shiiii....”
Gabriel slumped back against the wall. Everything was going dark, little black spots expanding to fill his vision, and all the strength left in his body was draining away into the ground.
“Well?” said Crowley drily, somewhere in the distance. “Got a cunning plan for flying out of here with one wing, duck?”
“Very cunning fox plan,” Gabriel muttered, and giggled. “Oxford University.”
As he slipped to the ground, he heard Crowley’s noisy sigh. “Save me from self-sacrificing idiots.”
—*—
I miss you, cousin.
Hey. I’m right here, Cassie.
You aren’t. You haven’t been for years. You only drop in when you need something and you never give anything of yourself in return.
This from the guy shacking up with a couple of humans who treat him like their portable firestarter.
Sam and Dean are my family, Gabriel. I wish you were too.
—*—
Even before Gabriel woke up, he knew he was back on his hoard.
The soft powerful thrum of home and strength was beating in his bones, knitting tissue and pumping blood. The pain had retreated into something comprehensible, and his body was his own again. And—
—and somebody was on his hoard with him.
Gabriel scrabbled to hands and knees with half a snarl, and Sam Winchester said “Dude” in a pained voice because Gabriel had just knocked his laptop off his thighs.
Gabriel blinked at him. The instinctive drive the intruder out reaction was... was actually failing to kick in. Sam Winchester, sitting there with his stupid hair and his stupid concerned eyes surrounded by Gabriel’s private special treasures, all the books and artefacts and weird random shit that he’d picked up here and there for the last couple of millennia. And Sam just looked... right.
“How’re you feeling?” Sam asked.
“... I think I’m hallucinating,” Gabriel grumbled.
Sam dimpled like an adorable idiot and picked up a deep bowl that had been perched on an eighteenth-century clockwork monkey beside him. “Nope, we’re really here. Dean says you’re an arsehat and that you should drink this.”
“The fuck does Dean know,” said Gabriel peevishly, but he took the bowl and sipped.
“Yeah, I keep telling him that. He’s only the most accomplished potion maker in the realm, and married to a dragon. Totally useless.”
“You’re indulging me. Stop it.”
“Sure,” said Sam, and grinned a shit-eating grin.
Gabriel flipped him off and drained the bowl. He could only identify a handful of the ingredients, but it was powerful. It felt like it sank straight into his bones, to stoke the fire in his heart and set his body mending. “At least he can actually make potions that don’t taste like those things that live in the slime at bottom of ponds got diarrhoea. How’d you even find my hoard?”
“Cas is sneaky.” Sam shuffled back a little way on his knees, picked up a bucket of something foul-smelling and a polishing cloth of soft leather, and jerked his head peremptorily. “Go on. Shift.”
Gabriel squirmed. “The hell I’m going to shift.”
“The hell you’re not,” Sam shot back. “Crowley was worried about you, Gabriel. Crowley. You’re going to show me the damage and let me fix it.”
... the boy was actually ordering him about. Him. And on his own hoard.
“Do you realise who you’re talking to?” he said curiously.
“Gabriel.” It was a plea and a command all at once, and Gabriel... didn’t know what to do with that. “Let me help you. Please.”
Any minute now Gabriel was going to smear this impudent human into jelly. Any minute.
But in the meantime, he found himself growling and stretching out and just... keeping on stretching. Until he filled the whole space comfortably and was curled around his treasures and... that one human in the middle of them. Who was staring in horror at the rents in his wing and the gashes and ice burns on his chest.
Gabriel sighed, and rolled onto his side to expose the wounds, and closed his eyes in defeat. “Get on with it.”
He heard Sam start to say something, then close his mouth with an audible snap. Then a hand was laid on his breastbone, a careful gentle pressure.
“Okay then,” Sam said softly; and he began to smooth the healing cream over Gabriel’s skin.
Like he belonged there.
“I thought your hoard was all... traditional,” Sam commented after a minute. “You know. Goblets and gold coins. Maybe a few precious stones.”
“Some of it is gold,” Gabriel muttered. “Do I come into your house and criticise the decor?”
“You know you do.”
Okay, that was fair.
“So you thought you’d just... cuddle up. To the wounded dragon. On his hoard.”
He felt the shrug. “Well, when Cas is sick it makes him feel better if we’re touching him.”
That was odd. There was no reason why that should be true, unless—
Ha. Ha. Gabriel was going to hold this over Castiel forever. He wasn’t just fond of these humans and married to one. He’d actually gone and fallen for them so hard, taken them so close to his heart and the fire of him, that they counted as part of his hoard. No wonder curling up with them made him feel—
oh shit
Gabriel carefully bit that train of thought in half, threw the pieces away, tore up the train tracks and devoured them.
There was quiet for a long few minutes, while the tingling warmth began to sink in and ease the aches. Then Sam said, in that restrained tone that meant there were a lot of things he wasn’t saying, “You know. Cas could’ve carried you too. If you’d just admitted you needed it.”
Gabriel said nothing.
“Crowley brought you to us. Told us what happened. Called Dean a lot of names.”
“Just Dean?”
“Well, Dean started it.”
Gabriel snorted.
“You and Crowley,” said Sam, once the silence had drawn out for a while. “Aren’t you... enemies?”
“Oh yes.”
This time it was Sam who didn’t reply, Sam who let the silence stretch; and to his own surprise Gabriel found himself, in the end, being the one to break it.
“We understand each other. If you could ever live as long as I have you’d see the value in that.”
“Huh,” said Sam ambiguously.
“Dude,” said Dean from the hall door. “How are you not dead?”
“Too awesome,” Gabriel replied, without opening his eyes.
Dean came stomping in, and again there was that sense of... rightness. Like he belonged in this room, with Gabriel’s hoard, with the rest of...
Nope nope nope nope.
On principle, Gabriel growled at the tiny human who was scanning the damage to his wing.
Dean thumped a fist against Gabriel’s shoulder. “Save it. Okay, Cas fetched leather and cord to patch the sails together until they heal but I don’t know if we’ll have enough. You’re a dumbarse, you know that?”
“Hey,” protested Gabriel.
Dean switched the glare from Gabriel’s wing to his face. “Seriously. Who the hell takes on the Ice Prince alone?”
Gabriel squinted at Dean down the length of his nose. “Oh come on, like you wouldn’t just rush right in to bust out Sam or Castiel.”
“Gotta give him that, Dean.”
Dean pointed at his brother. “You shut up. Stop smirking. Wait, what?”
“What?”
Dean was suddenly grinning, the little shit. “Did Gabriel just admit that he cares?”
“Drop it, Dean,” Sam warned.
Gabriel pushed himself up on one elbow and arched his neck, looming his head down over the impudent little mortal who was looking up at him with laughter sparkling in his eyes and not a trace of fear.
“I will eat you,” Gabriel informed him.
Dean reached up and tickled his chin. “Sure you will, big guy. Man, Sam must be giving you some good dick if it’s worth—”
Gabriel narrowed his eyes. Then he knocked Dean over backward onto a pile of obscene tapestries from the court of the Duchess of Whippenhale, and flopped his chin down on top of him.
Dean squirmed and complained. Gabriel yawned, slowly and pointedly, squishing him without regret. It really was very comfortable in here, even if this was all horribly humiliating. It felt like his hoard was all complete, all in one place, except—
—there—
The final piece walked in the door.
“Cas,” Dean gasped, “make him stop, your dick of a cousin is squashing me.”
“You usually deserve it,” observed his husband without pity, and dropped a load of cured hides from his shoulder to the floor. “Gabriel. May I enter?”
“You’re the only one who’s bothered to ask,” Gabriel grumbled. “Teach your treasures better manners.”
Dean spluttered and Sam said “his what now?” and Castiel looked furtive and guilty, so apparently he’d noticed but hadn’t bothered to tell them that little detail because he and Sam were both really good at insisting on using their words and still completely and utterly failing at communication. Gabriel felt a surge of fierce affection that he couldn’t resist, so he lifted his head off the struggling human and arched his neck to rub a possessive cheek along Castiel’s body. Castiel looked astonished, then soft, then smug. And somewhere near Gabriel’s shoulder, Sam said “Oh,” in tones of wonder and reverence.
Castiel ran his knuckles along the ridge of Gabriel’s brow.
“Asmodeus didn’t steal anything from your hoard, did he,” he asked, a low chastising rumble of love. “You were only there for us.”
“You’re an idiot,” Gabriel informed him loftily. Then he curled head and tail and body around his hoard (complete at last), and spread out his damaged wing to let his treasures patch it up.
It’s always embarrassing to find that you’ve told the truth without meaning to.
Look at this cute little guy that @talaraleya made! He reminds me a lot of dragon!Gabriel from my fic Equits Foedus. I got him a few days ago and have finally gotten around to finally show him off. Me and my mom are modelling him. She found him to be adorable and complimented how talented talaraleya is.
And she’s right cause look at this cutie is like a little beaded doll :3 I wanna take him places. He was able to be an adorable companion on my red and gold dress, which I wore to a family picnic. Thank you again, talaraleya!
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Chapters: 3/3
Fandom: Supernatural
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Relationships: Gabriel/Sam Winchester
Characters: Gabriel (Supernatural), Sam Winchester
Additional Tags: Dragon Gabriel, sacrifice Sam, Fluff, SO MUCH FLUFF, Gabriel is a terrible flirt
Series: Part 1 of Dragons and Farm Boys
Summary:
Sam was supposed to be sacrificed to the local dragon. The dragon wasn’t supposed to get sick, and Sam definitely wasn’t supposed to feed him chicken soup.
Dragon!Gabriel with shimmering golden scales. In human form his hair is just as golden, bright in the light. Gabriel making his shedded scales into a necklace for the handsome blacksmith Sam Winchester.
Sabriel -Dragon!Gabriel who is only interested in treasure and maybe this one boy from town who is kind of adorable.
This was actually written by the incomparable wordssometimesfail, because I got buried under prompts, you weirdos, and I knew she’d do a fabulous job. WHICH SHE DID.
~~~
Virgins. Dragons are supposed to kidnap virgins. The gender doesn’t matter—though females are traditional—but they absolutely have to be virgins.
Sam the blacksmith’s boy is definitely not a virgin. He brings the local tributes to Gabriel’s cave once a month, all rippling muscle and flashing eyes as he hauls the baubles that buy the town’s protection.
Anybody who looks like Sam couldn’t possibly be a virgin. And yet when Gabriel demands a virgin from the town to be his hostage for a year, it’s Sam who makes the climb.
“You?” Gabriel rumbles. Flicks his tail, drums his claws against stone. “You’re my virgin sacrifice?”
Sam tenses. “Sacrifice?”
“Relax, kiddo, it’s just a figure of speech. I’m not gonna eat ya.”
“Then what—”
Gabriel coils around Sam, points a claw at his hoard. “My babies needs organizing. ‘Specially the manuscripts. Think you’re up for it?”
“Absolutely,” Sam says, takes an eager step towards the treasure before him. Turns back and beams at the dragon. “I always wanted to learn how to read.”
Gabriel watches Sam’s backside. Virgin. Unbelievable. Well, hopefully the boy found that dragon-to-human spellbook soon.
